LetterMiner 1.0 for Mac is available to download at the LetterMiner website. The iOS version is in beta testing. If no major problems surface, the iOS version will be released in January.
Category: LetterMiner
Call for LetterMiner iOS Testers
The iOS version of LetterMiner is ready for external testing. If you would like to test LetterMiner, read this post and follow the application instructions. System Requirements An iOS device running iOS 9 or 10. Application Instructions Go to the Contact page. Click the Send Email button. In the email you send, tell me your …
LetterMiner 0.9
LetterMiner 0.9 is available to download at the LetterMiner website. This version overhauls the graphics and provides instructions on how to play the game.
Profiling Helps
I recently noticed a performance issue when playing LetterMiner on an iPad 3. When I tapped multiple letter tiles quickly, there was a delay before highlighting the tapped tiles. Why was there a delay? I profiled the game on the iPad 3 using the Time Profiler instrument in Instruments, Apple’s developer tool for profiling iOS …
LetterMiner 0.8 Released
Version 0.8 of LetterMiner is available for you to download at the LetterMiner website. This version adds a single-level game mode where you see how high a score you can get on one board.
Failed Experiment: Cross-Platform Target
Apple released the newest version of Xcode, Xcode 8, last week. A new feature in Xcode 8 is the addition of a cross-platform project template for SpriteKit games that lets you create iOS, Mac, tvOS, and watchOS versions of the game in one project. Because I’m developing iOS and Mac versions of LetterMiner, I decided …
LetterMiner Leaderboards
When I was writing about my adventures with Game Center, I forgot to mention the Game Center leaderboards I created for LetterMiner. Currently there are three leaderboards. The main leaderboard shows the highest level you reached in the game. I went with highest level reached instead of high score because each level has a point …
Supply and Demand in LetterMiner
A subtle feature of LetterMiner is it uses supply and demand to change the point values of letters as you move to higher levels. If you mined a letter many times (8 or more times currently) in the previous level, the point value for the letter decreases. If you didn’t mine a letter much (3 …
Game Center Achievements on Hold
After struggling with adding support for Game Center achievements to LetterMiner, I have decided to stop for now. I realized most of what I wanted to do with achievements I could do with leaderboards. As an example I wanted to have achievements for reaching certain levels, such as reaching Level 5 or Level 10. A …
Game Center Adventures
It’s been a while since I posted an update on Letter Miner. I’m currently working on adding Game Center support to LetterMiner. I never used Game Center before, let alone programmed for it, so it’s taking longer to release a new update. Leaderboards I have created two Game Center leaderboards for LetterMiner. The first leaderboard …